Shine a Spotlight on child sexual abuse

Spotlight

On Monday, I returned to my local cinema to watch Spotlight which was about how the Boston Globe researched and published the scandal of clerical child sexual abuse and how the Catholic Church hierarchy shovelled suspect and accused paedophiles out of parishes where they had become lightning rods to other parishes where they continued the abuse of children.

Blog - Clerical child sex abuse was by human beings not the devil

The problem with exposing this atrocious abuse was that the establishment, the church, politicians, the courts, public officials and influential people stood in the way of getting this truth revealed.

The tenacity of the Spotlight investigative journalism team was not only laudable and commendable, after they published their findings and that included hundreds of articles, they were awarded The 2003 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Public Service. The winning work appears on the page linked.

Protecting the church from the abused

There many facets to the story, from the fact that the longest established human organisation of political and religious influence was more concerned about its reputation at the expense of kids who were corrupted, abused, robbed of their innocence, defiled and worse.

The idea that at least 6% of priests could be involved in child sexual abuse was not only shocking and alarming, it was blindingly unconscionable that the church was ready to save the perpetrators and pay for the silence of the victims. Anyone who tried to expose this criminality faced the onslaught of condemnation, ostracism and every kind of reputational assassination by direct or indirect agents of the church.

A 7-year old’s experience

I needed to watch this film because of my own experience of abuse, I was hardly 7 when I was called into the toilet by a relation and asked to do things I did not understand, and the lifelong effect of that experience on me is lasting even if I am not defined by the experience.

Blog - My Sex Post (2007)

What is more saddening is that some people who were trusted by my parents to care for us took sexual favours off us and there did not seem to be anywhere for us to find redress or healing, we were bruised, hurt and damaged by a loss of innocence and childhood.

Maybe, if I had the opportunity to talk to my 7-year old self again, I would have immediately run to my parents to report these violations despite the terror I felt from my abusers, the need to be heard, sympathised with and protected by my parents.

Blog - Thought Picnic: The Barrier to Confiding in our Guardians

What the abused are up against

Then, back to Spotlight, the abused children faced even more insurmountable challenges, groomed by respected and respectable stalwarts of religion in their communities, where especially from deprived circumstances mothers were either naïve or conniving in allowing these men to access their children and abuse them, the children were caught in a vortex of wrongs stacked against them in all aspects of life.

Blog - Nigeria: How We Sacrifice Our Children to Paedophiles

Despite near and far relations, servants not a few, getting their way with me, I sometimes feel I was spared the vicissitudes of fortune that other abused children experienced from the clergy, in orphanages, in borstal and prisons, in the hands of evil paedophiles who stopped at nothing until they had murdered their quarry.

As the film ended, and the postscripts came on screen about the many places where clerical child sexual abuse had been confirmed, screen after screen revealed a city and somewhere amongst those names was Akure, Nigeria.

I wept for the many like me

I have always been of the opinion that despite the exhaustive exposé of these abuses in the West, we have not begun to unearth with any seriousness this clerical criminality in Africa, South America or Asia.

This along with many unreported defilements and rapes of minors, the atrocity of child marriages – girls given to the enterprise of sexual predators who have found the veneer of religion and customs to support their propensity to incurable paedophilia in the institution of marriage are things we still fail to address with the singlemindedness of saving the child from all harm.

I watched the credits of Spotlight sobbing almost uncontrollably because I knew from the depictions that many children never got to tell their stories, some committed suicide, most lives were irretrievably damaged, very few found the platform to relentlessly go after the people who abused them against all odds.

The damage is hardly understood

Nothing can ever restore the innocence of a child so abused, no restitution can fully recompense for the way society has acquiesced to allowing abuse to go on unchecked and no punishment can fully atone for the sexual abuse of minors, yet we must acknowledge these sexual predators exist amongst us, no matter how highly placed and that they must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Blog - Thought Picnic: We Never Knew What a Healthy Sexual Relationship Was Because ...

Blog - Thought Picnic: Fucked-up, but coping well

We all owe the children a duty to be ready to protect, ready to listen and ready to understand what they face when approached, groomed and abused. It must not be mentioned amongst us again that children are sexual fodder for people who will be protected from any sanction and essentially granted the immunity for the impunity to lasciviously prey on helpless kids.

Shine the Spotlight on all abuse and refuse for it to continue a minute longer.

Thought Picnic: Of Charity and Sacrifice

Welcome to the temple

Back at church today, one was caught between the enduring and the sacrifice, that being the story of Christ and the seemingly ordinary story of two men as depicted on plaques and memorial stones in the church.

There is much to be said of both the magnificence and simplicity of Manchester Cathedral (Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Mary, St Denys and St George in Manchester), its very accessible and welcoming nave and a message easy to the ear, the hearing and the soul.

In the traditional church calendar, today marked the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, the hymns, the readings and the sermon followed this theme.

Accommodation and ceremony

The pamphlet contained everything, this time, not much of a fidget to follow the service. At Communion the openness of fellowship is most evident because members of all Christian Churches are invited to receive Communion, yet you can also step forward to just receive a blessing. By informing a steward before the service, you can also receive a gluten-free communion wafer.

This time we did go High Church with incense at the altar, something the pamphlet informed us about, the pomp and ceremony at church can be quite engaging just as it is spiritual, I would suppose anytime I am in Manchester I would be revisiting my Anglican heritage and roots.

Enduring charity

Humphrey Booth (d. 1635) was a wealthy merchant whose charitable activities are recorded on plaque in the church, but more significantly is that what he bequeathed to Manchester that helped in restoring the church in the aftermath of the Manchester explosion of the 15^th of June 1996. I was in Manchester on that day, just 10 yards from where shards of glass fell on someone not long after I heard a loud bang and wondered until it occurred to me that it was a bomb.

Had he expended his means on ostentatious and hedonistic living, it is unlikely that 366 years after his death any of his substance would have been so remembered and recorded in posterity as I have been able to observe.

More on Humphrey Booth’s legacy – The Humphrey Booth Resource Centre.

Recognised piety

John Bradford (c. 1510 - 1555) of indeterminate birth date is memorialised with a plaque as a scholar, a reformer, a fearless preacher, a prebendary of St Paul’s Cathedral and was burnt at the stake for heresy. The heresy being as a Protestant he refused to revert to the Catholic faith that Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary) tried to restore in the land.

English church history has it that the government feared the consequences of putting John Bradford to death, more significantly, the crowds did protest his burning at the stake.

Honour of sacrifice

What caught my eye about his plaque was not that he was a son of Manchester and of great repute to be recognised as learned and significantly opposed to the direction of the royal court but that his last words were, “Oh, What am I Lord, that thou shouldest thus magnify me?”

When I look at traditional Christianity and what passes for it today, especially amongst the leadership, one can only be moved by the stories of charity and sacrifice, charity that endures for centuries and sacrifice where those who suffer by reason of their faith see their suffering in the light of their innocence still count it great honour to so treated for their profession.

One must stop and think, beyond which the search for Good Samaritan humanity that touches people continues in the church and on the streets.

Pope Francis taking us back to the core of our humanity

Pope Francis (L) caresses a sick person in Saint Peter’s Square at the end of his General Audience in Vatican City, 06 November 2013.
Photo courtesy of Washington Post

A man of faith

I watched with billions of others in 2005 as Pope John Paul II slowly departed this mortal coil, frail, infirm, a body so weak, but a spirit so strong doing the service he was called to minister to the faithful.

In his death throes, we wondered about how great a man was about to depart having left deep footprints in the sands of time, difficult to obliterate from our memories because his advent changed the world.

In July that year, I visited Rome for the first time as a birthday gift to a friend and as we queued to enter the Sistine Chapel, we were really in another queue that filed past the tomb of this amazing and great man of God.

A church so solemn

I am a Protestant, school in the High-Church Anglican faith, baptised at 9-years old and confirmed at 16. I took new religion of the Evangelical to Pentecostal kind at 18 and was baptised again, this time by full immersion at 21 but the Catholic Church has always held some fascination.

In 2008, I visited Fatima in Portugal, I watched the solemnity, the stillness, the reverences, the religiousness, the humility and the awesomeness, maybe I should have taken more away from that experience before cancer struck a year later.

Churches serving as sepulchres and places of worship depict an eternity of the circle of life and death that defines our humanity. The Catholic Church is one long continuous documentation of human history, the longest existent human religious and political institution; it is significant even if many ignore it.

A church astray

Today, there are many strands of Christianity, people rising with a gospel and a teaching gathering the wild sheep of people strewn all over the world to tents of great performance and pageantry. Many other religions too bring adherents to temples and synagogues imposing conditions, some easy, some difficult; all to lay hold on some peace on earth and possibly the promise of something in the Great Beyond.

In all this, the simply message of our common humanity is lost, the pain we share, the suffering that is the story of many. The plenty that the rich avariciously aggrandise to themselves stepping on the heads on anything or anyone to fill their vaults with much more without restraint, yet, like a flower we all bloom and then wither away.

For all the riches in this world cannot yet buy immortality, the best we can get is longevity in life, providence willing and being favourable towards us.

Compassion is the message

Back to the Catholic Church, we have a new Pope, his name is Pope Francis, and he is taking us back to where the church the belongs, to where religion serves humanity, to where humility is what draws the hearts of men to a truth that is irresistible, to where compassion is the open door to everyone, and it is a good thing.

Princess Diana with one handshake in 1989 dealt a blow to the stigma of HIV/AIDS, Pope Francis is dealing bigger blows, calling us to service as Good Samaritans, lifting our humanity to the pinnacle of existence above all beliefs, race, sexuality, condition, situation and whatever part of our diversity the unconscionable exploit for gain.

Good Samaritan humanity

In embracing, kissing and blessing a much-disfigured man, the Pope retells the gospel in the letter, the spirit and the acts of Jesus Christ when he walked the streets of Jerusalem and the Galilee, comforting and healing the sick, ministering love and compassion, with unconditional access.

No other story can be told than to see the story the picture tells. We must see, reach, touch, embrace – that is Good Samaritan humanity regardless of what you believe in.

Read the story and see the pictures – here.

Celibacy, sexual urges and the Vatican still in denial

The cardinal is wrong

I cannot believe that after calling a friend to order on the conflation of paedophilia and homosexuality a senior cardinal went ahead to reaffirm this rotten assertion [1].

Again, to protect the tenets and principles of this 1700 year old institution they would rather blame human frailty on some issue on which people would willingly take a moral stance without objectivity than one on which people might question seemingly inhuman religious diktat that restricts the full expression of our humanity.

In fact, I could contend that celibacy probably has more to do with clerical sexual abuse than homosexuality.

As I was chatting to a friend yesterday whose observance of these deplorable activities of the Vatican were leading her to question her beliefs she gave me an insight on this matter I never before considered.

Boys available for sexual necessities

Apparently, most of those abused by priests served in the church as altar boys or even maybe choir boys meaning an availability of boys as an outlet for the sexually frustrated and repressed.

It goes without saying that girls were also abused but in the circumstances any living thing might well have been an outlet for sexual urges of those who decided to exploit the circumstances and commit the crimes of child sexual abuse.

As she said in words I am forced to use to convey the severity of the matter, “They would have fucked anything.” That anything would have been anything available and that would have unfortunately been mainly boys who in their innocence, trust and service to God would have been groomed to serve the priests.

Sex does define not sexuality

The stricture of religious vows the priests existed under meant they would have been secretive as well as menacing to prevent their activities being exposed to a laity that would not have taken kindly to the abuse of privilege and authority.

There is a possibility that some of the clergy abusers might really have been homosexual but their abuse was one of opportunity and necessity.

As a parallel, there is no doubt that in single sex prisons the inmates would find sexual outlets amongst themselves; to then brand everyone who finds that sexual satisfaction as homosexual is just absurd – the situation is just one of necessity.

Being able to quote studies and statistics of linkages between homosexuality, paedophilia and even celibacy is convenient for the Vatican that fails to see that they do have a problem they are not ready to address.

The Vatican left behind

If the Vatican cannot begin to face up to the fact that they have been caught out by the evolutions of society in the 21^st Century and begin to address the matters with a sense of humanity, humility, moral integrity and contriteness, they are with their absurd pronouncements on the verge of irrelevance.

Eventually, the firm adherents of Catholicism would begin to doubt, question, criticise and vacate the authority of the church for other denominations that offer a better sense of adaptation to humanity expected of any institution in any societal setting.

In the end, the opprobrium homosexuals receive of the churches is atrocious as if the man Jesus Christ did not also die on the cross for homosexuals as much as all of mankind according to Christian teachings – you begin to wonder who is anyone in the church to stand as sentinel what Jesus Christ apparently came to do for everyone.

Sources

[1] BBC News - Vatican 'clarifies' cardinal's homosexuality abuse link

Brother, I am calling you out on this one

My writings and thoughts

I have a number of blogs that I read regularly for views, opinions and angles on all sorts of matters.

In general, I write about all matters I find concerning but I am most passionate about justice, fairness and rights. Usually, this would be pertaining to the under-privileged, the unfairly treated, the minority or just a case of plain commonsense being lost to some absurd situation.

In these areas, the abuse of children and women attract my most activist stance, then the intolerance of minorities which would be on races, sexuality, ability and any other seemingly wronged perspective.

Surely not you

Before I went to bed last night I read a piece on one of the blogs I frequent when updated and I was left askance in bewilderment at first then that turned to anger but I decided not to respond in the heat of that moment.

Some 20 hours on, I find myself no less indignant of the myopic, intolerant and ignorant views offered by this seeming intelligent person who I generally respect for his strong views but in this case, I would be remiss if I do not call him out for the reprehensible views cloaked under the concern for clerical child sex abuse.

Indeed, for an institution that has been around for 1700 years or more, the Catholic Church appears to be making a botched job of the matter of child sexual abuse, where they should have been more empathetic to victims and very intolerant of perpetrators their concern for the integrity of the great institution above all else leaves the Vatican on the verge of the serious embarrassment of losing moral authority.

Paedophilia is not homosexuality

That said, one has to appreciate the frailty of humanity where vows of celibacy are taken but the urges for sexual expression along with the pressures of calling lead certain of the clergy to abuse the vulnerable and trusting in the off chance they would not be found out – the resulting paedophilia is abhorrent at best.

The sexual abuse however was not just limited to boys, girls were also abused just as one can say about oneself that the abuse started with a female and then it moved on to males.

Child sexual abuse is definitely paedophilia but a paedophile does not necessarily have to be homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual – maybe there is a preponderance of homosexual behaviour in these abuses but to conflate paedophilia with homosexuality and present them as the same is stark ignorance.

Sex is an expression beyond procreation

Whilst again the act of sex between heterosexuals is in the majority, its primary purpose cannot just be for procreation even though it does result in children. To contend that sex has no other function between people apart from procreation is absurd and probably suggests people with kids have only had sex a finite number of times not too greater than the children they have produced or something to that effect.

Reading that even reads as very silly, but it was one of the expressed opinions, furthermore, there is the tendency to allow religious fundamentalism to blind one to the existence of minorities amongst us.

Surviving as a minority

Homosexuals are probably in a minority in many societies, but that does not mean they should not have a right to the pursuit of happiness in whatever way they might see fit within the law, privately, consensually and maybe liberally too.

The idea my blogger friend put forward was the equivalent of expecting everyone to be heterosexual or nothing – extrapolating that oblique line of thought, it would be like expecting the minority of the black race in Scandinavia to conform to the type and forms of that region which by inference would be that they should be white, probably blonde and maybe blue-eyed.

Crass is what comes to mind, a jumble of ill-thought through opinions of bigoted slant expounded under the cloak of indignation about clerical child sex abuse does not help justify the atrocious views expressed.

Shame on you

To say I am disappointed in the writings of this blogger does not begin to show my disdain especially in a world where minorities of different kinds need emancipated voices to speak out on their troubles and afflictions, seeking fairness, justice and the protection of rights.

It is saddening that having lived for so long in the West; the West has not found any expression of civility, tolerance, the appreciation of diversity or the protection of the rights of the minority in his opinions.

Worse still is to express those views it so brashly, ignobly and ignorantly – I am sorry to say – My brother, I am calling you out on this one – shame on you.

Beaten to the first

Perturbed

I missed an opportunity to capture the anxiety of people on this day but one thing that jumped at me without reading the story was just as imaginable as it was improbable.

The Vatican has become embroiled in morass of clerical child abuse cover-ups that at the weekend the Pope attempted bluster over amelioration by indicating that he would not be hounded over the claims that he did not deal decisively with priests under him who had been accused of the abuse of minors.

Diffident

Now, it would be unconscionable of myself to ever suggest that there was a bit of hubris in the somewhat unchristian of attitude of a church lead by the Vicar of Christ to recognise that the issue is hardly about errant priests but about justice for victims which should include succour for their pain exemplified by a touch stance against child abuse.

Fundamentally, it seems the church considers these sexual "sins" moral issues rather than societal criminal acts which need to be passed on to civil authorities rather than mollified with in the clergy.

Trying to reach the priesthood with that very fact of criminality along with the emotional and other consequential damages to the welfare of the victim has been hard and nigh on impossible but activism and outrage from outside the church.

Disturbed

So, who would not have thought it true when I read this morning that the gathering storm of discontent with the attitude of the church had lead to an unsustainable confidence in leadership that in the quest for all that is good natured and Christianly for the sake of grace and peace - the Pope, Benedictus XVI, the Vicar of Christ and the Bishop of Rome had resigned.

We can be thankful that the first 12 hours of April the first are given to us to ponder the imponderable, excite controversy and offer opinions too atrocious to contemplate - but sometimes, you do wish the news was really the news.

One reality remains for today, every occurrence of this day, many happy returns to she who was born this day.

Clerical child sex abuse was by human-beings not the devil

I am incensed

I got asked yesterday about the news that the Catholic Church in the Netherlands taking responsibility and acting proactively to deal with the issues of child sexual abuse in the church and institutions run by the church.

I responded saying I was incensed about the fact that the abuse happened at all recalling the many scandals and reports that highlighted how children were taken advantage of by so-called respected pillars of society.

A probe is being conducted headed by a Protestant to investigate claims, somehow, they expect the abused to come out and report the crimes against their persons like someone reporting the trivia of a penny falling through some grating on the street – some of us just want to get on with our lives not recount the dark times of our childhood. Thank you.

The West is hardly the whole

In the West, we might well have expended and exhausted ourselves with the news and happenings in the United States and Ireland; that it has come so close to the Vatican might well just show that this is really a problem.

I volunteered my conversant a few bits of information, that I was abused as a child by people in whose care I had been placed by my parents intimating him of the fact that whilst it might be “easier” to raise matters of abuse in the West, we cannot seem to countenance the fact that it happens in Nigeria and dare I say, even in Africa.

In fact, all the revelations we have heard of in the “enlightened” and “empowered” West might well be the tip of a humongous ice-berg of global child sexual abuse where societies are literally intimated by the awe of the church and its priesthood they are not to be able to challenge such heinous and sinful conduct.

The ones we so respect

Child sexual abuse is however not limited to faith-based organisations to which we entrust the care of our children, it happens in homes, amongst relations and with members of society to whom we pay respect and fear to dare when we see wrong.

This is not to castigate the many helplful and selfless organisations that have pitched tent in Africa, South America and Asia to help where our governments or welfare systems have failed, but to pretend the issue of child abuse has been fully exposed in the West and dealt with is to be naïve about the nature of humanity regardless of location.

The detail is not in the devil

I just read three news stories that I micro-blogged as tweets, then I realised there might well be a sinister ploy towards absolution that we cannot allow to stand.

Chief exorcist says Devil is in Vatican http://is.gd/adQHF New battle lines drawn or an atrocious distraction from Catholic sins?

Cardinal says celibacy partly to blame for clerical sex abuse http://is.gd/adSvT Sex is part of life, morality is the detail.

Catholic sex abuse scandals are 'evidence the Devil is in the Vatican http://is.gd/adZ9X Confused - celibacy & devil to blame now?

Having read in one place that the devil was in the Vatican and then another that partly blamed celibacy for clerical sex abuse the deduction that linked the sexual abuse to the devil was just too much for me.

People not phantoms at work

It is adults in positions of authority, responsibility and power that take advantage of innocent children to fulfil their perverted sexual lusts, to try and mask that very obvious earthly activity behind some supernatural or paranormal manifestation that excites religious passion and possible acquiescence is deplorable and contemptible at best.

I know the people who abuse me and I know the ones who abused others I knew, they had names, they had influence, they were respected and to everyone around us, they were beyond reproach – they were neither gods, nor were they devils, they were flesh and blood like you and me.

We must never lose sight of that clear fact and everything must to done to bring those nasty people to justice, no matter what façade they have been able to put up to mask their devilish acts.

A devilish act does not a devil make and I will not allow the Catholic Church to pass off those acts as if the people are not liable for their activities because they are under the influence of some devil – I will not buy that view and by God, we must all condemn that view before it gains any traction. Today!

Archbishop thought child sexual abuse was not criminal

A moral evil of no criminal import

Just a week ago I wrote about how the trust parents and society reposed in institutions that care for or educate children was betrayed and how children became victims of abuse with no means of being heard out and helped.

The strength of feeling presented in that blog had not begun to ebb when I came across a comment made by a one-time American Catholic Archbishop thus [1], “We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature.”

My blood boiled like I had just unfortunately fallen out of the pincer-grip of a giant man-eating crab into the gaping fire and brimstone of hell and my skin crawled like a million scorpions had awakened under my epidermis.

The clergy beyond the law

Somehow, Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland [2] had weakly found a way of splitting hairs between the moral evil and criminal act of abusing children.

It is strange that if a child were abused by the non-clergy, the abuser would be a paedophile but by this definition as espoused by a person of the Catholic Church hierarchy, it is just a moral evil – if I may add of self-gratification where innocent children are conscripted into pederasty and made catamites for inordinate desire of evil people pretending to be holy and consecrated to the service of God.

Most revered and respected

The Most Reverend Rembert George Weakland who apparently belongs to the Order of Saint Benedict [3] and thereby is a Benedictine monk under the Rule of Saint Benedict [4] “resigned” his Archbishopric in 2002 when it was revealed that he paid $450,000 of diocesan fund to a man who accused him of date rape in 1998, however, that was also the year he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75, the coincidence making his retirement rather ignominious at the time.

Weakland is in the process of writing his memoirs and in it he gives insight into his complicity in reassigning known priest abusers to other parishes without informing parishioners.

In civil society, a known sex offender in the US or the UK would be on a sex offender’s register having probably served time for their offences and key members of the community would know of that offender’s presence in order to prevent a situation where children can be groomed and preyed on.

Growing out of it

Obviously, these are recent developments, in the Catholic Church the archbishop avers without much conviction or empathy but with breathataking naivety that “My general reasoning was that there were probably some kids who 'grew out of it,' and then some who were deeply disturbed for life.”

We thank God for those who presumable “grew out of it”, but for those who were deeply disturbed for life, I do wonder for the kind of eternal retribution that awaits the priests who stole their childhoods and sentenced the children to an unimaginably dark life whilst they walked away scot free, free of blame, free of sanction and free to take tribute as holy men.

It beggars belief that this kind of thinking prevailed in the mind of very religious and erudite senior members of the clergy who had the power to change things and ensure the abuse stopped forthwith.

As the Archbishop of Milwaukee for 25 years from 1977 to 2002, he presided over a diocese where a chronicle of 800 pages titled The Sexual Abuse of Children in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee [5] highlights the systematic management, toleration and rotation of child sexual abusers in the diocese.

Rotating the abusers

It would appear that the Catholic Church did know about these abuses and the re-assignment of suspect priests from as far back as 1985 but very little was done as Father Thomas Brundage stated as the beginning of that chronicle – “After 1985, all churches in the United States were on notice that they cannot put priests who have had incidents of having sexual abuse in parishes or any setting where they would have access to children. For the church authorities to have allowed this to happen was sinful, more than negligent, and I believe they should be held accountable.”

The Most Reverend Weakland’s humiliation would have been complete with the deposition [6] he gave on the 5^th and 6^th of June that ran into 312 pages, fully transcribed and highlighting the activities of 13 named priests.

From America to Ireland

But this is just one diocese in America, in 2007, the Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles paid child abuse claims of $660 million [7] and in the Republic of Ireland where Colm O’Gorman [8] became of the first of many to report abuse to the civil authorities and hold the church and its hierarchy accountable [9] for abuse, he was awarded EUR 300,000 in damages in 2003.

Colm O’Gorman has just published a book, Beyond Belief [10], where he highlights the reality for many an abused child “I was living in a world where a priest who spoke the words of God used me for sex, and there was no-one to tell.”, for “priest who spoke the words of God”, consider father, brother, uncle, sister, mother, aunt, teacher, pastor, person of authority, respected community figure, the list is endless.

Colm O’Gorman was on BBC HardTalk [11] last week where the questions were hard to ask, harder to respond to and almost too hard to comprehend in hearing that any of this could really have happened on God’s own earth and Ireland in particular, but the publication of The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse [12] was a revelation that turned the stomach with unprecedented revulsion.

Is the abuse in Africa too?

The next big question then is, is all this institutionalised child sexual abuse only in America and Ireland or is the current revelation the tip of the iceberg of atrocious moral evils that might be taking place in South America, Africa and Asia?

Places where people in religious authority are held in high esteem, where child sexual abuse could be seen as the collateral taking of spoils for the greater good that these institutions bring to society. Thereby, the end satisfactory justifies the means.

Where the child abused sees it as part of the sacrifice for a better life in the future, where even if parents or the authorities knew of all this abuse the child would be berated, scolded and threatened into absolute silent and pliancy.

Until people start to speak up about familial and institutional abuse in these places rather than allowing the fear of shame to perpetuate an unspeakable evil, the abuse would continue and abusers would congregate to take their sexual favours off our children – IT MUST STOP!, but it can only stop when people start to speak up.

Sources

[1] ‘We did not know that child abuse was a crime,’ says retired Catholic archbishop

[2] Rembert Weakland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] Order of Saint Benedict - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Rule of Saint Benedict - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] The Sexual Abuse of Children in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee

[6] Deposition of Archbishop Rembert Weakland

[7] Catholic Church pays off paedophile accusers [akin.blog-city.com]

[8] Colm O'Gorman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[9] BBC NEWS | Programmes | Correspondent | Suing the Pope - Colm's story

[10] Beyond Belief by Colm O’Gorman

[11] BBC iPlayer - HARDtalk: Colm O'Gorman – Only playable for UK residents, this iPlayerList might eventually work sometime in the future, it is under development.

[12] The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse

Child sexual abuse requires greater parental indignation

Where is the outrage?

Words have begun to fail me before I have finished the first paragraph but I will not relent until what is to be written is written.

I cannot muster enough righteous indignation to the lack of boiling outrage to the report about the abuse of children in Ireland and the implications to abuse all around the world vested in the bosom of the Catholic Church.

I know some abuse

My interest is simple; I was first sexually abused at 7 and then even though we lead a seemingly privileged life by Nigerian standards of having servants, cooks, gardeners, security men and drivers, that in itself bought other issues.

These were people employed by my parents or the companies my father worked for who were trusted by my parents to ensure that we were well cared for, safe and out of harm’s way.

Some of these people were sponsored even up to tertiary education level by my parents, but behind the scenes at least 3 of the male servants took sexual favours by inducement, enticement and veiled threats – between the ages of 7 and 11, I do wonder if I was a sexual deviant, a willing participant in games or an abused child in sexual activity with people at least in their 20s.

Tough but bearable

I cannot say any of the abuse was systematic, persistent or violent, but it was sustained, I welcomed my parents home, they none the wiser, the servants expressed their loyalties and things just happened.

I went to a co-educational boarding school, it was tough in terms of discipline and the regimented lifestyle, I was at one time bullied but the whole experience was hardly indelible to the extent of leaving psychological scars, I was fortunate, I was lucky.

I talk about it for the hopeful benefit of helping others walk away from those nasty events of their past but nothing I went through can compare in any manner to the things other children went through as revealed in the reports of The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse [1].

A charity camp in a church

It is sorrowfully and painfully heartrending to read of the sustained, systematic and endemic abuse [2] in Catholic-run children’s institutions in Ireland, it has taken over 8 years to fully compile this report but it has done little to assuage the pain of the victims.

I am compelled to put Concentration Camp, Christian Charity and Catholic Church side by side as synonyms of each other and until much is done to bring the perpetrators to justice, I hope that this alignment gains more momentum.

It is societal compassion that compels us to seek ways of caring for children who are orphans or seriously underprivileged and somehow in our naivety we believed that Christian Charities had volumes of the milk of human kindness to care and cater for the wellbeing of these children.

Our faith and trust in them

Even parents thought these Catholic institutions would instil both discipline and Christian conduct in their children such that many sent their children to these places.

For those children with parents, they probably suffered less but those for whom society had bequeathed the trust of parenthood and guardianship to the agents of the Catholic Church seemed to have been sentenced to hell on earth and here we were thinking they were been brought up as goodly Christian ladies and gentlemen.

The nuns and the priests terrorised the children, raped and molested many, these places were residential homes to society but the reality for the children who lived in these places was akin to concentration camps.

The children were not gassed but what they suffered is heinously unspeakable, and unfortunately, I do not see enough indignation and outrage to bring the perpetrators to justice.

This was a Christian Charity running Concentration Camps supported by the Catholic Church; reprehensible does not begin to help appreciate the situation, when shall we really lose faith and exact judgement?

Secrecy and succour to the perpetrators

These were children who had no voice, who when they spoke suffered more privation and violence than we can ever imagine and now that the atrocious acts have been exposed it is unfortunate that we see the faces of the damaged children now adults but those holy priests and nuns are given succour within the church.

Like concentration camp commandants and guards, when they have done their evil in one place and they were at the risk of exposure, the church moved them to another concentration camp where they had new children to abuse and gratify their sadistic perversion in the light of their vows of celibacy.

The Catholic Church is complicit in the abuse of the children and paying up for the abuse does not half address the way our trust, hope and faith in Christian Charity has been dashed, shattered and damaged.

Suffer the children not make the children suffer

If we as a society will do nothing about this, I would go back to where the idea of real Christian Charity to children began.

The parents brought their children to Jesus, he touched them and blessed them and the disciples saw this and began to rebuke the parents, it is there that Jesus then said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.” [Luke 18:16 KJV]

The idea here is than a child enters a Christian situation to be blessed and their character, implicit trust and faith in the people who care for them is characteristic of those of seek the kingdom of God. Where a child has had this trust breached by adults gratifying their inordinate and despicable desires through persistent and systematic abuse, what we have is children made to suffer rather than children suffered to see Christian goodness.

Millstones and necks in the sea

To those people who have damaged the children, Jesus had one message to whoever has the authority to carry out the right and just action. “These little ones believe in me. It would be best for the person who causes one of them to lose faith to be drowned in the sea with a large stone hung around his neck.” [Matthew 18:6 GWT]

I find no ambiguity or equivocation in that statement, these children arrived in these residential homes with the hope that they would find succour and preparation for worthwhile lives, they found hell meted out by trusted religious figures given the responsibility for their care.

They caused these children to lose faith, in other translations, they offended the children, they caused them to stumble, they caused them to sin – for all the heinous acts committed against the children, if the least is to cause them to lose faith – lose faith in society, in Christian Charity, in mentoring, in hope and the will to live, the statement is the same.

Put a weighty millstone around their necks as one translation says and drown them in the sea. These abusers by the basic invocation of Jesus Christ do not deserve another day of oxygen, they were not to be hanged or crucified which is the punishment of the day but thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around their necks.

Only the severest punishments should suffice

It calls on any form of justice that we might have in our seemingly civilised world to address this abuse in the most exacting way, the severest punishment we can find in our law books without any recourse parole, rehabilitation or reconsideration.

I am no death penalty advocate, but if that be on the books of the countries in which the act was perpetrated then that should be the just punishment. However, I see no necks to put weighty millstones around and there is no sea in sight.

Where is the honour in the Catholic Church?

It is incumbent on the church not only to apologise and show contrition through condemnation of the acts, they should follow the Christ-like idea to its conclusion – expose these vermin and have the law take its full course.

We still hunt after Nazi criminals, more so should be hunt down child abusers, I would dare to equate their acts with those of the Nazi regime, in fact, their acts for the way it has affected the victims is probably worse.

The church must be compelled to cooperate in exposing all those involved in serious criminal activity; society must not be complacent with being blindsided by the religious entities when they harbour criminals.

Parents must speak up

Most of all, if you are a parent and are not already filled with outrage about this, I do wonder.

The children once had parents, I do not think it was the wish of their parents to leave their children orphans and in the least if they had any choice in the matter, they would have liked for society to care for their children in some loving and caring way.

If I were a parent I would want to know that if I expressly left my child in the care of anyone they were really being cared for in the way I would where I also have a choice in choosing the carer and where I can make none of the choices, I will still have those expectations.

Where children have no parents, I would be hopeful that other parents in society would offer the blanket of parent care or at least parental oversight to ensure the children are not used and abused. What has been exposed is bad enough, their sure is much abuse going on still somewhere in our neighbourhoods and it all should stop.

The children lost their childhood, it was taken from them by people we trusted would do a good job on behalf of society under the auspices of the church – if this matter ends here, we have done our humanity a great injustice and the victims a second injustice – we should be bold enough to take the scare out care.

Sources

[1] BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Abuse report - at a glance

[2] Sex abuse 'endemic' in Catholic institutions - Telegraph